Lee Kuan Yew, the progenitor of Singapore, has passed away. Lee was a singular individual with many interesting ideas, and Singapore likewise is a singular place with many interesting features. Plenty of ink has been spilled about how special Lee was and Singapore is in the last few days, and TK does not have much more to add on Lee or Singapore, by themselves.
What this blog can add is a bit of perspective about Singapore and Korea, and the two countries' leaders, as ideological counterparts. In 1994, Lee Kuan Yew engaged in one of the most important debates in East Asian political science--against Kim Dae-jung, who was at the time an opposition leader in Korea, and later, Korea's president and Nobel Peace Prize winner. The debate came in the form of Lee giving an interview with the Foreign Affairs magazine, and Kim responding to Lee's points several months later on the same magazine. For anyone who is curious about East Asian politics and the spread of democracy, these two pieces are must-read classics.
Go now, and actually read them--because they contain big ideas, and any summary of them will not do full justice. But very roughly speaking, Lee Kuan Yew and Kim Dae-jung were debating the relationship between East Asian culture and democracy. Lee Kuan Yew considered East Asian culture to be distinct from the Western culture; accordingly, East Asia and Singapore would not accept democracy--at least, not the kind that was being practiced in the West. Lee, for example, said because East Asia focused greatly on family, "a better system" would be "if we gave every man over the age of 40 who has a family two votes because he is likely to be more careful, voting also for his children. He is more likely to vote in a serious way than a capricious young man under 30."
Kim Dae-jung, on the other hand, believed that democracy was a universal force. To Kim, culture was important, but cultural differences were overrated. Instead, the commonalities of world culture--arising from the common human experience--uniformly pointed to democracy. In a key passage, Kim Dae-jung wrote: "Asia has its own venerable traditions of democracy, the rule of law, and respect for the people[,]" pointing to traditional Confucianism under the which the king is held accountable to the people, the civil service system that was based on meritocracy rather than hereditary inheritance, and the independent bureaus that were free to criticize the king's deeds--all of which happened centuries before Europe even had a seedling of democracy. East Asia already had all the trappings of a democratic culture; it simply needed to transplant the democratic institutions that would give expression to this culture.
It has been a little more than 20 years since the Lee Kuan Yew-Kim Dae-jung debate began. Incredibly, both men made a real-life case for their arguments in their respective countries. Under Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore enjoyed brilliant economic growth under socially restrictive rules, topping the charts in positive indicators across the globe. Under Kim Dae-jung, Korea oversaw opposition parties peacefully exchanging power like mature democracies do, and at the same time raised a host of world-class corporations while becoming a major player in the global soft culture.
Who will be proven correct? The implication of this debate is greater than ever. In the last 20 years, democracy in Asia has either stalled or regressed, depending on where you look. Most importantly, China is yet to democratize. If Lee Kuan Yew was right, the world's non-democratic superpower will never be a democracy. If Kim Dae-jung was right, a seismic change is afoot. Either way, the result of this debate will shape the next century of East Asia and the world.
Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.
TK's rant in the post about being a doctor in Korea brought about some negative reactions in the comments. He could care less; the idea that a non-Korean could simply waltz in and become a doctor in Korea is delusional and deserves ridicule.
However, TK does believe in being helpful. Owing much to the excellent, detailed information sent by a reader who explored this path, here is how a non-Korean citizen may become a doctor in Korea. Technically, it is possible--it's just that, as TK stated previously, the process is so mind-blowingly difficult that it is practically impossible for most non-Koreans. Again, if you even have to ask this blog to figure out this process, you are not going to make it.
Can you make it like Dr. Nick and say, 여러분 안녕하세요? (source)
But what the heck, let's go ahead and satisfy some curiosity. There are four potential points of entry into Korea's medical job market:
1. High school student about to enter college
2. Transferring into medical school as a third year, with a bachelor's degree completed
3. As a holder of a medical degree (e.g. M.D., MBBS, etc.)
4. As a board-certified, full-fledged doctor
We can look each one in turn:
1. High school student
If you are in high school, you may attend college in Korea and major in medicine. There are 36 colleges in Korea with a medicine major. Medicine majors will attend college for six years, and graduate with a bachelor's degree. The first two years are strictly undergraduate education. Years 3 and 4 are pre-clinical basic science, and years 5 and 6 are all clinical.
There are two tracks of college admission in Korea: international and domestic. Relatively few colleges in Korea have a separate admission track for international students, but there are several schools that do. The international admissions requirements--including whether or not you qualify for the international track--are different for each school.
For example, Yonsei University (which runs one of the four best hospitals in Korea) defines the international applicant as a non-Korean citizen with neither parent being a Korean citizen, who has been educated outside of Korea continuously since junior high school. The admission requirements themselves are similar to that of Korean universities, but the CSAT is replaced with the SAT/ACT with the addition of the Korean Language Proficiency Exam. If you were not continuously educated in an English-speaking curriculum or school (as defined by Yonsei), you also have to take the TOEFL. Other colleges have similar, but slightly varying, requirements.
Most colleges in Korea do not have a separate track for international applicants. If the school does not have a separate pool for international students, you will have to take the CSAT like any other Korean high school student, and score extremely high to secure admission as a medicine major. This will be practically impossible for most non-Koreans.
(More after the jump)
Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.
2. Transfer into Medical Program
Some of the colleges in Korea with a medicine major allow transfer admission into the third year of the six-year program, for applicants who has a bachelor's degree. Although technically the applicant would be repeating a bachelor's degree, the admission itself is similar to the graduate school admissions process. For those who have not completed high school in Korea, Korean Language Proficiency Exam will be required. The applicant will also have to take Medical Education Eligibility Test, which is equivalent of the medical (graduate) school entrance exam in other countries. MEET is conducted entirely in Korean.
It should be noted that the transfer opportunity exists as a stopgap measure. Previously, to be a doctor in Korea, one could either attend the six-year bachelor's degree program or four-year master's degree program. As of 2013, however, Korea decided to phase out the master's degree program, and instituted the transfer program in order to provide a path to study medicine for Korean students who did not choose medicine as the undergraduate degree, but was intending to attend the master's degree program.
This means that this route may disappear soon. It also means that the structure of the transfer admissions is largely indefinite. There is no indication that there is a separate international admissions process--in fact, it is almost certainly the case that this process, when created, did not contemplate non-Koreans taking this route to become a doctor in Korea. In practicality, like taking CSAT, it would be virtually impossible for a non-Korean applicant to take MEET in Korean and score higher than most other Korean applicants.
3. As a Holder of a Medical Degree
If you have a medical degree, you can take Korean Medical Licensing Exam (KMLE) to become a doctor. But for a foreign medical school graduate to sit for the KMLE, s/he needs to first take and pass a qualifying exam. What is more, not every foreign medical school graduate may sit for the qualifying exam: if Korea's Ministry of Health and Welfare deems that the foreign degree is not commensurate to Korean medical training, the degree-holder cannot sit for the exam. There are cases of medical degree holders from China, Belarus and Dominican Republic who were not allowed to sit for the qualifying exam because their degrees were considered inadequate.
Preparation for the qualifying exam is a two-year commitment, because it is very difficult. The qualifying exam is geared mostly toward Koreans who study abroad in a non-Korean medical school, which means the test is not non-Korean-friendly. (But unlike the transfer option, this route does contemplate that non-Koreans would take this exam to become a doctor in Korea.) Only one to three percent of the applicants pass the qualifying exam--which means that every year, there are less than ten foreign medical degree holders who even attempt to take the KMLE. If your Korean language skill is not at the native level, your chance of passing is pretty much nil.
If you somehow pass the qualifying exam, you are allowed to sit for the KMLE. Most Korean medicine major students take a year to prepare for the KMLE. Nearly every student who majored in medicine in a Korean college passes the KMLE. On the other hand, no more than three to four foreign medical degree holders pass the KMLE each year; in many years, there is no foreign medical degree holder who passes the KMLE.
4. As a Certified Doctor
Even as a certified doctor, you may not practice medicine in Korea unless you passed the KMLE. However, TK came across anecdotal instances of non-Korean trained doctors working in Korea without passing the KMLE. I do not know their precise legal status, but they exist. At this point of one's career, practicing in a foreign country would be a fluid arrangement rather than a set path.
* * *
So, to recap:
1. If you are a high school student, you might be able to major in medicine as an international student in the handful of Korean colleges that have a separate admission track for international students. If you cannot make it through the international application process, you have to take the CSAT along with all other Korean high school students to be admitted as a medicine major. If you study very hard during college, you may be able to pass the KMLE and become a doctor in Korea.
2. If you have a bachelor's degree, you might be able to transfer into the third year of the six-year medicine program in Korea. To transfer, you will have to take MEET, which is conducted in Korean, and score higher in MEET than Korean college graduates.
3. If you have a medical degree, you have to take the qualifying exam that is mostly designed for Koreans who study abroad, and be one of the one to three percent of applicants who pass the qualifying exam. Then you could be one of the three to four people in Korea who passes the KMLE as a foreign medical degree holder.
4. If you are a world-famous neurosurgeon or someone similar, there just might be some way for you to work as a doctor in Korea. Good luck with that.
Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.
As they face sentencing on blackmail charges that could land them in jail for three years, two young women are trying to save themselves with letter writing: "Model Lee Ji-yeon and GLAM's Dahee have submitted their next letters of apology for attempting to blackmail Lee Byeong-heon, making it the 10th for the model and the 17th for the idol." Are letters of apology standard operating procedure as felons face trials and/or sentencing? And do they really send ten or more? Do they go to the court or to the victim?
Frequent Flier
Short answer: yes! Letters of apology are more or less a standard operating procedure for criminal defendants. It is not legally required, but a criminal defendant who is already convicted or whose conviction is all but certain would be foolish not to write one.
For nearly all crimes, Korean criminal law's sentencing guidelines provide that the sentencing court may consider "sincere self-reflection" as a factor to reduce the jail term, potentially down to a suspended sentence (i.e. no actual time spent in jail.) In addition, there is always a chance that the letter of apology would move the victim of the crime to ask the court for clemency, which also factors favorably in sentencing.
Lee Byeong-heon being sad about that whole blackmail thing. (source)
This is exactly how it worked with Lee Ji-yeon and Dahee, who were convicted of blackmailing Lee Byeong-heon. For those who are not up to speed with the latest Korean entertainment gossip: Lee Ji-yeon and Dahee surreptitiously recorded Lee Byeong-heon making sexually explicit jokes while they were drinking together. Lee Byeong-heon did not help himself either, as he later flirted with Lee Ji-yeon through text messages in a manner that borderlined on harassment. The two ladies, in turn, used the recording and the text messages to blackmail Lee Byeong-heon for approximately US $5 million. Instead of paying up, Lee Byeong-heon decided to suffer the embarrassment and let the world know about the blackmail. The jig was up for the ladies.
Lee Ji-yeon and Dahee did receive prison terms--14 months and 12 months, respectively. But their letter-writing campaign apparently worked, to some degree. Lee Byeong-heon did ask the court for clemency, and the prosecutor's office appealed the case because it felt that the sentences were too low. The prosecutors specifically questioned the sincerity of the two perpetrators' apologies, claiming that the defendants are continuing to testify falsely.
Does it make sense to consider "sincere self-reflection" as a part of the sentencing rubric? If you are the type who loves the idea of putting the bad guys in jail, the idea may sound ludicrous. You might also favor drawing and quartering a murderer and cutting off a thief's hand, but the modern criminal jurisprudence has moved away from that notion.
Is there some validity to the point that this requirement brings about the "apology inflation," of the kind shown with the case of Lee Ji-yeon and Dahee? (Even by Korean standards, 17 letters of apology is a big number.) Sure, there is some validity. But take it from a criminal defense lawyer: sentencing is always more art than science, because it is impossible to precisely measure the wage of one's guilt. Modern criminal law aspires for rehabilitation of criminals. To that end, it is meaningful to inquire whether the defendant is being remorseful, even if such inquiry at times may feel like mere formalities.
Got a question or comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.
I will soon be taking my IB’s and start to search for colleges and universities, but I was really hoping to work as a doctor in Korea. My plan was to go to King’s College or Imperial College in the UK, and then as I get my degrees and stuff, apply as a doctor in Korea. I am not really good in korean, but I am willing to try my best to learn it as soon as possible. Do you think my goal will succeed ? In Korean hospitals, do they accept foreigners as doctors? What if I will not be able to master my korean? That will be a problem right? Valentina
TK cannot believe that he is writing a post about this question. But he must, because this question comes in with shocking frequency. Apparently, there is a sizable population of people around the world who really want to be a doctor in Korea. If only Korean hospitals accepted foreigners! Then these people can just pursue the dream, the dream! Of being a doctor in Korea!
Here is the simple answer: if you have to ask this question, you are not going to be a doctor in Korea. How does TK know this? Simple. In any given country, around 95 percent of the students will not be able to become doctors no matter how hard they try, because the material is too difficult, the requisite test scores are too high and the smarter students will crush them. Are you a top five percent student in your country? If you are, can you do the same in a completely different language? (And yes, if you want to be a doctor in Korea but can't master your Korean, it will be a fucking problem.)
A quick perspective on how hard it is to get into a medical school in Korea. Seoul National University is widely considered the best university in Korea. In 2014, to make it into most majors offered by SNU, the student had to score between 370 and 380 out of 400 in the College Scholastic Aptitude Test (CSAT). But to get into SNU as a medicine major? The student had to score 400 out of 400. Seriously. You could not get a single question wrong in an exam with nearly 200 questions that takes more than seven hours.
And this is even before getting into the fact that Korea's CSAT is probably a harder exam than anything that a typical non-Korean 17-year-old has ever seen in her life. Don't believe me? Here is a scale model of the 2010 CSAT that TK translated into English. Remember, if you want to be a doctor in Korea, you cannot get a single question wrong. And you would be taking this exam in Korean.
(A step back: in Korea, each major of a college administers the admission for itself. For medicine majors, each school uses a different proportion of CSAT--that is to say, in addition to CSAT scores, some colleges give their own exams and/or conduct an interview.)
Sure, there will always be special cases. Some of you guys will be hyper-geniuses who pick up foreign languages and medical school-level knowledge like we mortals eat a muffin. Some of you will have a family history that puts you close to Korea, such that you can compete on equal footing with other Korean students--like, for example, Dr. John Linton at the Yonsei Severance Hospital, who was born in Korea because his great grandfather Eugene Bell came to Korea as a missionary in 1895. (To be sure, Dr. Linton is a Korean citizen. But he was not one when he became a doctor, as he naturalized just three years ago.)
These folks can be a doctor in Korea although they are not Koreans. But they don't need to ask an anonymous Internet stranger to figure out how to become a doctor in Korea. You, on the other hand, sent TK an email with this question because you can't speak Korean well enough to figure out this information on your own. So I can say this with confidence: you're not going to be a doctor in Korea. Stop clogging my inbox with your stupidity.
Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.
The question of authenticity may pop up in any given genre of Korean pop music, because every genre of K-pop is an import. Yet the question of authenticity is particularly pressing in hip hop, because no other genre of pop music cares so much about "being real," to a point that authenticity is the genre's raison d'etre, as hip hop does. Indeed, even in the birthplace of hip hop, the quest for authenticity is elusive. (Is Jay-Z still real, even though he went corporate?) When hip hop is exported to a different cultural sphere, the hurdle of authenticity becomes ever higher.
Parker's article did a great job in identifying the elements of what is considered "real" in Korean hip hop. Consider this post a companion piece, about how the idea of authenticity evolved in Korean hip hop. This inquiry is necessarily a historical one. So let's jump right into history of Korean hip hop, and start with the pioneers.
I. Pre-History: Early 1990s
The very first piece of K-pop that may be considered "hip hop" appeared in 1989. Hong Seo-beom [홍서범], a moderately popular rock musician, recorded a song called Kim Satgat [김삿갓].
Even by today's standards, Kim Satgat's rapping, overlaid on funk beat, has held up surprisingly well. But Hong's attempt was clearly an experimental one. Hong never aspired to be a hip hop musician; Kim Satgat was a one-off, avant-garde take at the new form of music that was gaining ground in the U.S. at the time. In the popular recount of Korean hip hop's history, Hong name is rarely mentioned.
Instead, the K-pop artists who came after Hong, such as Seo Taiji [서태지], Hyeon Jin-yeong [현진영] and Lee Hyun-do [이현도] are usually considered the pioneers of Korean hip hop. But even with this corps of artists, the label "hip hop musicians" would be a stretch. Seo Taiji's first album in 1992 , for example, definitely caused a sensation with a historical rap number, I Know [난 알아요]. But hip hop was just one of the many musical styles that Seo Taiji played with; in his later albums, Seo drifted toward his original love, i.e. rock music. Lee Hyun-do and his group Deux showed more dedication to the genre, but Lee's creativity (at least for the music that he himself would perform) was cut short when Kim Seong-jae [김성재], Lee's partner in Deux and the animal spirit of the group, passed away under mysterious circumstances at the tender age of 23.
(More after the jump)
Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.
It is fairer to think of this era as the pre-history of Korean hip hop, because few K-pop artists considered themselves as a "hip hop artist." In this time period, Hip hop was a device, not an end to itself. Even at the time, music of Seo Taiji and Lee Hyun-do was not referred to as "hip hop", but "rap dance"--dance pop with some rap sprinkled on. In fact, the tradition of rap dance is very much alive in today's K-pop, as it is almost a K-pop cliche to insert a rap bridge in a dance number.
II. Anchored Realness: Late 1990s to Early 2000s
It was not until late 1990s that K-pop artists who dedicated their career to hip hop began to emerge. For the first time, it made sense to refer to a proper "rapper" in Korean pop music scene. Korean hip hop in this time period brewed in two levels, which largely kept away from each other at first. Roughly speaking, the levels may be referred to "overground" and "underground." The former appeared on television and sold albums by hundreds of thousands; the latter put together mix tape-quality albums and performed in basement clubs.
1997 was a watershed year. A sizable crop of K-pop artists who may be considered proper rappers debuted through large production companies. (I add the "may be onsidered" because Korea's hip hop purists would vigorously disagree with my assessment.) Jinusean, Uptown, JP (Kim Jin-pyo [김진표]) and Yoo Seung-jun [유승준] all debuted in 1997. During this period, the idea of "realness" in Korean hip hop had a clear orientation: across the Pacific, toward America. Hip hop was the latest genre that was imported into K-pop, as all pop music genres were previously. The logical conclusion was clear: real hip hop was American. Realness was anchored outside of Korea.
To be real was to look like America hip hop artists. So at the time, Korean hip hop appealed its American-ness in many different ways. Virtually all significant (overground) Korean hip hop artists in this period flaunted their American connection. Both members of Jinusean (Jinu and Sean--yes, seriously) were Korean Americans. So were all three members of Uptown; the crown jewel of Uptown, a promising female rapper who went by "T", was half African American. (T stands for Tasha; she is now better known as her real name Yoon Mi-rae [윤미래], and as the wife of Tiger JK.)
Cover for Jinusean's 2001 album, The Reign.
Jinusean still holds the record as the most copies of album sold among Korean hip hop artists. (source)
Not only were Korean rappers kind of American, they (almost) looked and sounded like Americans. Much of their songs had a generous helping of English lyrics and rap. (Tiger JK and DJ Shine of Drunken Tiger, who debuted in 1999, could barely speak any Korean in the early stages of their career. JP wrote much of Drunken Tiger's Korean rap in their first album.) Korean rappers' fashion and choreography, ahem, "emulated" the prevailing black music trends in America. Their music videos were shot in locations that evoked the milieu of American inner cities--a sight that simply did not exist in Korea.
In this cohort, Jinusean enjoyed the most popularity, owing greatly to the two major figures in the pre-history of Korean hip hop: YG (Yang Hyeon-seok [양현석]) of Seo Taiji and Boys, and Lee Hyun-do, who produced the group. But for our purpose, Yoo Seung-jun is probably the most significant, as Yoo was the one who pushed the "anchored realness" logic to its breaking point. Yoo Seung-jun did not simply import the music or the fashion of hip hop. Yoo sought to import the soul, the swagga of hip hop--the aggressive, authority-defying, rule-breaking "thug life" kind of rap.
Yoo's music video for his hit song Nanana, linked above, is in some sense historical. Yoo's first hit song, Saranghae Nuna [사랑해 누나] was about dating older women, already indicating his willingness to break the rules. (By the way: that's not really considered breaking the rules in Korea anymore. Korea changes quickly.) In Nanana's music video, Yoo Seung-jun achieves peak thug life, Korea circa 1998. The music video for Nanana displays Yoo in all possible variations of thug-life style power play in Korea--most daring motorcycle rider, best fighter in class, blatant disregard of school's hair regulations, romantic liaison with a young, hot female teacher, and so on. For some time in Korea, Yoo Seung-jun occupied the same space that James Dean occupied in his life: a rebellious, heartthrob bad boy.**
Let's take a step back, and make one thing clear: in hindsight, Korean hip hop of the 1990s was cringe-inducing. The cringe does not simply come from the fact that most things, 20 years later, are tacky. It also comes from the fact that Korean hip hop of the 1990s was clearly an exercise in exoticism and cultural expropriation. To put it bluntly: these were a bunch of Koreans trying to be black--so much so that JP, in 1998, dropped this infamous diss that will forever remain in the annals of Korea's hip hop history:
혹시 그거 아냐? 여기는 미국 아냐
You know something? This isn't America.
얼어죽을 East Side, West Side 외치지만 말고
Stop saying freakin' "East Side, West Side"
제대로 좀 해봐 몇 년 후에 깡통 매봐
And do something real. Or wear a can a few years later. [="go bankrupt and become a beggar."]
그럼 두고두고 땅을 치고 후회할 테니 그럴 테니 하하하하
Then you will regret it for the rest of your life, that's right, hahahaha.
"Anchored realness" is a misnomer, if one takes the definition of "real" seriously. Any attempt to locate the source of authenticity in a culture that is not one's own would always look ridiculous--at first, at least. Korea's hip hop artists themselves were aware of this, and endeavored to make hip hop their own skin rather than an ill-fitting suit. And the breakthrough would soon come--from the underground.
III. Inner Authenticity: Early 2000s to Present
While Korea's overground hip hop artists were engaged in a wholesale air-lifting of hip hop from America, Korea's underground hip hop artists were attempting to grow the foreign seed of hip hop out of Korean soil. The early attempts were crude and grotesque, no better than the cringe-inducing replicas that their overground peers created. But it was from the underground that Korean hip hop found the new path forward.
No K-pop genre owed its existence to the Internet as much as Korean hip hop. Hip hop in America arose organically within the African American communities, which were (for better or worse; mostly for worse) segregated into ghettos. In Korea, it was impossible for a similar community to form, until the Internet appeared.
Korea was always ahead of the curve when it came to the Internet. Already by mid-1990s, the Internet was fairly common in Korea. Although the Internet at the time were not much more than collections of low-tech message boards, the message boards were quite enough to bring together Korea's emerging hip hop minds. Old rap heads of Korea are familiar with names like Blex, Camp Groove and Dope Soundz--the names of the early online hip hop communities that served as the breeding ground for truly localized hip hop.
Member of these communities met offline regularly. They would listen together and discuss the latest rap albums from America. Later, they graduated into creating their own music. Blex, for example, released an album called BLEX: Black Sounds, the First Sounds [BLEX: 검은 소리, 첫 번째 소리] in 1997, making history as Korea's first independent hip hop album. Early pioneers of underground Korean hip hop--such as MC Meta for the group Garion or DJ Wreckx, Korea's first hip hop DJ--were raised through these online communities. While most overground rappers were occupied with looking and sounding black, Korea's underground rappers explored ways to make hip hop Korean, trying to jump over the linguistic and cultural barriers.
And finally, the breakthrough came--from one of Korean hip hop's true geniuses, Verbal Jint.
One comparison* is sufficient to establish the revolutionary character of Verbal Jint's rhyme and flow. Below is the rhyme structure of G.O.D.'s 1999 song, To Mother [어머님께]. The letters in red rhyme:
어려서부터 우리 집은 가난했었고 남들 다 하는 외식 몇 번 한 적이 없었고 일터에 나가신 어머니 집에 없으면 언제나 혼자서 끓여먹었던 라면
Now, compare the above to Verbal Jint's 2001 song, Overclass. The rhyming phrases are color-coded and underlined:
90년대 말을 잘 기억해 난 힙합을 말하던 대다수가 거센 말투와 어색한 허우대만 찾으려하던 때 한 명의 팬으로서 제발 어서 그 저개발 상태를 벗어나서 크기를 바랬어 그러나 이 문화는 덧없는 언쟁과 함께 무너져 갔어 우리들 안에서 분명히 누군가는 선구자가 되어야만 했어
The difference should be obvious. G.O.D.'s rhyme is forced and mechanical. Other than the final syllable of each sentence, nothing rhymes, and no sentence pairs organically. In contrast, Verbal Jint's rhyme is three-dimensional and progressive. Verbal Jint changes speed and emphases of his lyrics to create parallel structures with clauses of different lengths. Each clause-pair evolves into the next set of rhymes, with the previous pair implying the next. Truly, it is not an exaggeration to say that Verbal Jint is the one who unlocked the true potential of Korean language within the logic of hip hop.
That Korea's hip hop artists were finally able to speak hip hop in their own language had massive implications for Korean hip hop's quest for authenticity. The ability to rap organically in Korean language, by its very nature, projected far more authenticity then any imitation of American rap. The heavy anchor of authenticity was gone. Through the medium of hip hop, Korean artists were finally able to speak in their own voice and tell their own stories.
This breakthrough allowed Korea's underground hip hop musicians to cross over into the mainstream. CB Mass, for example, became a mainstream sensation as they were able to combine their superb Korean rap with compelling story-telling. As the wall between overground and underground hip hop eroded, the mature Korean language rap began to infiltrate all the way to the ranks of Korea's idol pop. Not even the most "produced" boy band in today's K-pop raps like G.O.D. did in 1999.
As Korean hip hop artists tamed and domesticated the foreign genre, the question of authenticity became more internal. "Realness" in Korean hip hop became the question of expressing authentic experience and emotions--as it should be. Since the early 2000s, Korean hip hop as a whole has showcased the full range of pain, rejection, anger, joy, party, love, finally becoming true to the artist's inner self.
IV. What's Korean about Korean Hip Hop?
Can Korean hip hop ever be "real"? Many American hip hop aficionados, who zealously guard their own ideal of "real," may scoff at the idea. And they are not without a point. Clearly, hip hop is not of Korea. It is a cultural artifact that Korea imported. And surely, hip hop in Korea is still in the process of becoming localized. Although Korean hip hop has come a long way in the last two decades, there is still no stand-alone "hip hop culture" as one exists in America. Idol groups that use hip hop as a mere device significantly outnumber those who pursue hip hop as a craft. So--if the definition of authenticity is narrow enough, it would preclude Korean hip hop from being real.
But what would be the point of that definition? Find me a part of the world that American pop culture has not touched. Is it not enough to say realness only requires the expression of true inner self? If the artist can successfully operate the vehicle to her desired destination, does it "really" matter where the vehicle comes from?
To hell with the snobs, I say. True authenticity requires no justification, because it justifies itself. Today, Korea's foremost rappers express their genuine selves through intricate rhyme and flow. Listen for yourself, and tell me it's all a lie. I dare you.
-End Notes-
* This comparison comes from 한국 힙합: 열정의 발자취 [Korean Hip Hop: Footsteps of Passion] by Kim Yeong-dae [김영대] et al. (2008).
** In fact, being too American became Yoo Seung-jun's downfall, as he used his U.S. citizenship to avoid Korea's military draft. The public backlash was severe, and his career was over. More background here.
*** The last piece is Poison [독] by Primary, featuring E-Sens of the group Supreme Team, from 2012.
Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.
TK lied--sort of. The best essay to read about Fresh Off the Boat is indeed the essay by Clarissa Wei. But the best piece to read overall is Constance Wu's interview with the Time magazine regarding the show.
TK made it his practice to share links and short thoughts on his Facebook. But the interview with Wu, who plays Jessica on the show, has such great insights that it deserves a post.
Below, for example, is pure gold:
I think the reason people have been quick to throw the stereotype criticism on us is because there will always be people who are laughing at the wrong thing. Some people are like, “Oh, stereotypical accent!” An accent is an accent. If there were jokes written about the accent, then that would certainly be harmful. But there aren’t jokes written about it. It’s not even talked about. It’s just a fact of life: immigrants have accents. Making the choice to have that is a way of not watering down the character and making it politically correct. It’s choosing authenticity over safety, and I think that’s bold.
This is such an incredible point. From the beginning of this blog, TK has been trying to figure out how to approach the distinctiveness of Asian Americans. (For example, this post. Reading this again after seven years, I have many regrets.) Plainly, Asian Americans are different. Then how should Asian Americans, and the mainstream society, talk about this difference?
Some Asian Americans have carried on as if we should never talk about this difference. TK thinks this is a mistake, and Wu explains why: the difference is real, and pretending that the difference does not exist is to lie about ourselves. This is who we are, and we should not be embarrassed about it.
Wu makes this point a bit more specific to her character Jessica, which makes her perhaps the most compelling character on the show:
She’s aware of her difference, yet she doesn’t think that’s any reason for her to not have a voice. It doesn’t elicit shame in her. She doesn’t become a shrinking violet. And instead of that being something that Asians should be embarrassed of, I think that’s something that we should be proud of—the types of characters who know they don’t speak perfect English, who know they have different customs, who don’t think that that’s any reason for them to not have a voice.
The difference does not elicit shame in Jessica. This is perhaps the most important lesson that Fresh Off the Boat could impart to young Asian Americans: our difference is what we are, and it should not be a source of shame. We are who we are; don't apologize.
Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.
We are four episodes in with the historic television show, Fresh Off the Boat. Among the many reviews and essays that revolved around the show, the best read in TK's mind was this piece by Clarissa Wei:
I grew up resenting my parents for all of the above because it was far different from the childhoods I saw and devoured on television. I thought my parents were crazy; that my mom was neurotic and my dad was overly obsessed with American symbolism. And while I had a vague sense that other Asian-American families had similar experiences, I had no idea just how similar the experiences were. There were no reference points.
. . .
Yes, every Asian-American childhood is different, and Fresh Off the Boat is only based off of one Asian-American family. But I relate to it far more than any other television show I have ever seen in my life. For once I have something to identity with.
Asian-American kids desperately need shows like Fresh Off the Boat as reference points. The small details matter. Watching Jessica eat an apple off of her knife, seeing Louis hire white actors for a commercial, seeing Eddie being taunted for eating noodles in school, and watching the Huang family encounter casually racist remarks by folks in the community — all this was like watching a montage of my own childhood.
This observation dovetails into a topic that TK has been mulling over for some time: growing up as an Asian American. This topic is interesting partly because it is an experience that TK has never fully had, because he immigrated to the U.S. as a 16 year old. Yet sooner or later, TK and TKWife will have their very own TKDaughter or TKSon, which adds urgency to this topic.
Having spent a lot of time studying and listening to stories of many different Asian Americans, one conclusion I made is: it is critical for an Asian American child to grow up feeling normal. Children may not be able to verbalize everything they sense, but they nonetheless keenly sense whether they are different from other children, and whether their family is different from other family. If everyone a child sees is different from her, she ends up defining herself through the difference rather than through who she is.
Of course, this is not always the case. Even under adverse situations, certain people with extra special mental strength manage to imbue their own agency in their identity. (One such example could be Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank. Growing up in rural Iowa where he belonged to one of two Asian families in the town, Kim graduated his high school as the valedictorian, class president and the quarterback for the football team.) But with most children, being surrounded completely by people who are different from them is a difficult challenge in the course of identity formation. It is hard not to let the difference define you. You become the shadow, rather than the thing itself.
Although TK cannot exactly prove this empirically, he is certain that this is the ultimate cause of the subtle difference in attitude between the Asian Americans in/from the West Coast versus Asian Americans elsewhere. There is no good way to characterize a large group of people in a very fine-tuned manner, so I will state it crudely: West Coast Asians, on the whole, exhibit significantly less angst about their Asian-ness. Having been surrounded by enough Asians throughout their lives, they never had the need to justify their Asian-ness. Not so with Asian Americans from elsewhere, like young Eddie Huang from Orlando. There is a reason why Huang so loudly proclaims his ethnic identity, while Roy Choi--a chef like Huang, but from Los Angeles--quietly, but confidently, mixes Korean and Mexican.
West Coast Asian Americans certainly live as racial minority in America. But in their day-to-day lives, they do not constantly experience that minority-ness. The minority experience is an unending, tiresome struggle to justify one's being. And there is only one way to prevent this struggle from being the essence of your identity: around a child, there needs to be a critical mass of Asian American families that serve as a reliable sample of the humanity, such that the child's family is not the only example of what being an Asian means. Without the critical mass that demonstrates Asian Americans' essential humanity, the Asian American identity will always be a kind of an add-on that is grafted onto what is "normal," i.e. white.
As Wei's essay ably shows, it is difficult for a child not to be shamed by the difference. Some children respond to this by pretending that the add-on does not exist; some respond by feeling excess shame or excess pride on this add-on. (Thus creating the three archetypes: "twinkie," "self-loather" and "AZN Pride".) But as long as the Asian American identity is considered an add-on rather than an integrated part of normalcy, an Asian American child is never at ease.
(I cannot even begin the grasp the experience of Asian American adoptees, most of whom experience the difference within the family, as they are growing up. I have quite a distance to cover, and I am not far enough along my journey to talk about that topic just yet.)
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